Page 106 of Not Just for Christmas

For me, Christmas is about feeling at home, and looking at the people gathered around the Christmas table and knowing that your whole world is in that room.

Melody sighed. That really is the true meaning of Christmas. One last question before you go: who or what would you most like to find under your tree on Christmas morning?

Easy. The woman I love, that’s who.

Dylan shut down the interview, reached out over the water and replaced his phone on the table. My heart was in my mouth. I’d got it all wrong. Again.

‘That woman under the Christmas tree …’ I began shakily.

‘Is sitting in a hot tub underneath the stars right now.’ He bit his lip, more nervous than I’d ever seen him. ‘I turned down the opportunity because I don’t want to be back in the States next year,’ he said, taking his glass out of my hand. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t even want to leave Merrydown for a while.’

His words hit me like heat in winter, delicious and breathtaking, melting something frozen inside me. He didn’t want to leave. Hope pulsed through my veins.

‘I meant what I said about loving Devon, about wanting a change. And I want a chance … with you.’

A ridiculous laugh bubbled up out of me, half relief, half disbelief. ‘Even though I was awful to you and said that you and me … that it was impossible?’

‘You weren’t awful, you were scared. And I was too. So all this …’ He waved his glass around us. ‘… is because I figured if I could show you how good things could be, I might turn impossible into possible.’

‘I thought I’d blown it,’ I said, swallowing a sob. ‘I thought you were taking the job in order to put distance between us. I’m so glad you didn’t listen to me.’

‘You’re not the only one who can be stubborn,’ he said with a smile. ‘You and I are in the weirdest situation. I only get the chance to prove to you how good we could be together because my best friend is no longer here. That’s a lot to come to terms with for all of us, you know?’

‘I do know,’ I replied, feeling the trickle of a tear down my face. ‘I feel guilty that I’m here and he isn’t. But then I remember that nothing I can do will bring Jack back and that the best way to honour his life is to live mine as well as I can.’

He edged towards me until he was close enough to brush his thumb across my wet cheek. ‘I’ve thought about nothing else since I left yesterday.’

‘And what is your conclusion?’ I murmured, hoping that his was the same as mine, hoping that he’d stay not just for Christmas but forever. Just like Sam had wished for.

He didn’t answer straight away and then exhaled a breath that looked suspiciously shaky in the cold.

‘That we stop looking for the reasons why we shouldn’t be together, if that’s what we both want. Look for those and we’ll find a dozen of them.’ He closed the gap between us until our legs were touching beneath the water. ‘So for tonight we look for the reasons why we should. Why this – you and me – is OK. Better than OK. In fact, I think you’re perfect.’

He rested his fingertips on the back of my neck and I turned towards him, not caring that my tears were falling one after another now, not from sadness like they had so much in the last two years, but from the joy of knowing I was loved and no longer alone.

‘I’m not saying that the future won’t have its ups and downs,’ he continued. ‘I might be a romantic, but I’m realistic too. But I love you, Lucy, there’s been a place for you in my heart since the day we met. For the last two decades I’ve had to deny myself the gift of loving you, and apart from one weak moment, I almost did it. I’ve tried to find someone who could even come close to you in my eyes and I failed. So if you really don’t want this, then tomorrow we can make Christmas fun for Sam, and I’ll leave as planned. We can forget this ever happened and we can go back to just being friends.’

‘But …’ He paused. ‘If you feel for me even a tenth of what I feel for you, then give yourself the gift of loving me. Because we get one chance at happiness, and you and me, we deserve this.’

‘What I feel for you,’ I whispered, as the truth finally found its way from my heart to his, ‘is a lot more than a tenth.’

And this time when I kissed him, beneath the stars, and the fairy lights, with the sleepy noises of the farm in the distance, I realised that sometimes the best surprises didn’t come wrapped in shiny paper beneath the Christmas tree, but in the shape of a person you didn’t know you were allowed to hope for.

Chapter 45

It was midnight by the time Dylan and Lucy came back into the house. Gus had been snoring lightly in front of the Aga and Sam was fast asleep, clutching his blue bunny to his chest, the other hand still holding ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Between them, they’d whizzed through the remaining chores: Dylan had piled presents under the tree, while Lucy had prepped the turkey and set the bread maker to come on in the morning.

There was just one thing left to do before he took her up to bed for the first time.

In a halo of golden light from the glowing embers of the fire and the twinkle of the Christmas-tree lights, Dylan watched Lucy stuff presents into Sam’s stocking ready to delight him in the morning. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt this happy. He’d left the farm not sure if he’d be welcome back, now he knew he would never want to leave.

For the last couple of hours, in the hot tub, Lucy had been in his arms. They’d kissed and talked, planning for the future. He was going to record his album in London while she enlisted Pete’s help in selling the herd before getting started on the building plans, which now, as well as holiday cottages, were going to include his very own recording studio.

They’d called Lucy’s parents for whom it was already Christmas Day and wished them a Merry Christmas; they’d called Dylan’s mom, who was about to go carol singing around the Florida retirement village, and then FaceTimed his sister Rachel, who winked at him from her phone screen and declared that seeing them together at last was the best present she could wish for this year.

Dylan felt the same. Seeing Lucy so excited and happy, unfurling like a Christmas rose in his arms as her confidence grew was more than he could have dreamed of; he felt like pinching himself.

‘OK, one stocking well and truly stuffed,’ Lucy said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand to pull him up.